One Minute Writing Workshop: Planning With A Spreadsheet

 Hello and welcome to this little one-minute writing workshop.

This month, I want to have a little chat about something that I do when planning out a piece of fiction. Using a spreadsheet.

Back in the day, I used to be an avid writer and scribbler of notes. They would contain great ideas and wonderful plot points that I was convinced would create a fantastic story. However, my handwriting is atrocious so, when smartphones came along, I quickly jumped ship to typing things up, meaning that I could spend less time deciphering my scrawl and more time actually writing.

Using a spreadsheet for planning was the next logical step for me.

By putting plot points in individual cells, not only could I read my handwriting, but I could then move those cells around, allowing me to manipulate the plot of my story. There was no tedious re-scribbling or rubbing out, no copying a section and trying to locate the correct space to paste it in. I now just pick up a cell and move it. The plotline of a  story can be changed with ease in a matter of seconds, again allowing more time for writing.

Why not have a go? It could revolutionise how you plot out your stories.

Don’t forget to visit my website www.aschambers.co.uk for more details about my books. 

You can subscribe to my newsletter here for up-to-date details regarding all my writing and appearances.

You can check out my Patreon Book Club for advanced screenings of my videos and free books.

Take care and keep looking out for what lurks in the shadows…

A.S.Chambers.

Short Story: Test Flight

 Hello and welcome to this month’s short story video.

This time around, it is the turn of Test Flight, a short piece of flash fiction from 2015’s anthology All Things Dark and Dangerous.

Test Flight was the second flash piece that I published in an anthology (Extraction being the first, the year previous). I love really short pieces. I find them a challenge and enjoy getting the word count as low as possible. I think this little chap works and I hope that you enjoy it.

Don’t forget to visit my website www.aschambers.co.uk for more details about my books. 

You can subscribe to my newsletter here for up-to-date details regarding all my writing and appearances.

You can check out my Patreon Book Club for advanced screenings of my videos and free books.

Take care and keep looking out for what lurks in the shadows…

A.S.Chambers.

Spalluccipedia: Sophia

 Greetings and welcome to this monthly dive into characters, places and themes in the ever-expanding world of my paranormal investigator, Sam Spallucci.

This time around, I want to have a little chat about one of the more curious side characters in my books, Sophia.

Dressed in appearance like a prim and proper librarian, Sophia first turns up in Sam’s world in Sam Spallucci: Ghosts From The Past, where she warns Sam that Wallace is involved with the coming of the Divergence and insists that our hero tries to stop his old university acquaintance. Sam being Sam is never one for having his chain jerked one way and then the other and has a decidedly frosty relationship with this entity as he feels that she is constantly looking down on him and seeing him as beneath her, only there to do what she wants “for the greater good”, so to speak. 

Things certainly come to a head in Sam Spallucci: Troubled Souls when it is revealed that Sophia is, in fact, Alec’s mother, the part human/part angel Eloise and possesses the same aptitude for digging into people’s heads with her psychic capabilities.

I hope you enjoy the short video in which I explain a bit about her origins, how I’ve used her and my thoughts for her future.

Don’t forget to visit my website www.aschambers.co.uk for more details about my books. 

You can subscribe to my newsletter here for up-to-date details regarding all my writing and appearances.

You can check out my Patreon Book Club for advance screenings of my videos and free books.

Take care and keep looking out for what lurks in the shadows…

A.S.Chambers.

A.S.Chambers - February Roundup

 Good morning one and all after what seems to have been an incredibly long January.

Well, the mornings and evenings are starting to get lighter so it’s time for me to start thinking about waking up from hibernation and cracking on with more writing. I always find December and January hard to write in as I’m an early riser, normally up with the sun. So, when the sun decides that it doesn’t want to put in an appearance until gone nine in the morning, that makes my creativity plummet. 

Having said that, I have ventured out of my bear cave from time to time to scribble certain things down and, as a result, Sam Spallucci: Lux Æterna is now about three-fifths complete. So far, I have first drafts of the following cases: The Weird Wonderland; The Zealous Zombies and The Argumentative Archaeologist. Last week I started on number four, The Ridiculous Retreat (although the title may change on that one), with The Crying Crucifix standing in the wings, waiting to see the light (see what I did there…?) as number five. 

The biggest challenge with Lux is that it is now in the same time period as Fallen Angel which is already written, albeit not yet published. As a result, I am frantically noting things down on a wall planner and in a diary to make sure that the correct events happen at the correct time. I’ll probably do a special Spalluccipedia video about this micro-management either later this month or in March. I think you’ll find it fascinating to see how all the stories weave together. Archaeologist alone links into about five other stories. 

More imminently, though, for publication is Out Of The Depths. The Kickstarter for this launches at the end of the month and all Seraph members of my Book Club will receive a signed copy of this new material anthology as part of their membership when it publishes in April. If you’re not a Book Club member, make sure that you sign up for notifications regarding the Kickstarter project. You can do that here.

Before that, I’m looking at publishing the second Macabre Collection in late Feb, early March. Look out for its cover reveal later this month.

Don’t forget to visit my website www.aschambers.co.uk for more details about my books. 

You can subscribe to my newsletter here for up-to-date details regarding all my writing and appearances.

You can check out my Patreon Book Club for advance screenings of my videos and free books.

Take care and keep looking out for what lurks in the shadows…

A.S.Chambers.